So there's fewer differences between engineering design and graphic
design than I thought (though I'm not surprised).
On both matters Gunnar notes (payment for immaterial things, and how
teamwork happens - and doesn't - in education), I and many of my
colleagues would say the same for engineering design.
The one thing that made me /itch/ a bit was Gunnar's "...if graphic
designers are going to become more central..."
I don't like the notion of engineering designers being at the 'centre'
of engineering design problems. If agents must be at the centre, then
it should be the client/user. Ideally (for me) the design is at the
centre, and all the 'experts' (including sundry designers) will be
ranged around it, as it were.
Cheers.
Fil
Swanson, Gunnar wrote:
> Nobody should be surprised that I tend to agree with Gavin's wittgensteinian language approach in that I see "design" not as a single field but rather as a constellation of variously (and variably) related fields. The assumption that the word "design" has a single meaning allows people to "agree" or "disagree" while in separate conversations.
>
> Kathryn (also agreeing with Gavin) on June 27:
>> really the work that designers do,
>> ?organize collaborations-which is why it's often so
>> funny that they get paid for their output (to design
>> a product of some kind) when in fact they are
>> ?organizing the way we'll think about something.
>
> A lot of people seem to be much more comfortable paying for a thing than for paying something immaterial. Even clients who would tell you that a conversation with me is the most valuable thing I have to offer will then ask me to stick the conversation on the invoice as part of some piece of design. I'm not sure whether that's so they don't have to explain to someone else or because they can't bring themselves to pay for something immaterial.
>
> Filippo on June 26:
>> Insofar as requisite skills for students to learn, I think
>> some of them are:
> [snip]?
>> * teamwork
>
> This applies well and doesn't apply at all to graphic design. That is, there is little teamwork taught or learned in traditional graphic design education. What little there has been has not, for the most part, addressed teamwork in any meaningful manner. One of the reasons is the graphic design faculty rarely has any control over anyone except graphic design students. Teams for large, interesting, complex problems are mixed. A team of all graphic designers is only a step up from a single graphic designer. This really hasn't been much of a problem for typical graphic design practice but if practice is going to expand and adapt and if graphic designers are going to become more central (rather than limited aestheticisers of other, more interesting designers' work), it is vital.
>
> Gunnar
> ----------
> Gunnar Swanson Design Office
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>
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>
> at East Carolina University:
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--
Filippo A. Salustri, Ph.D., P.Eng.
Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering
Ryerson University
350 Victoria St, Toronto, ON, M5B 2K3, Canada
Tel: 416/979-5000 ext 7749
Fax: 416/979-5265
Email: [log in to unmask]
http://deseng.ryerson.ca/~fil/
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